art every day month, day thirty.

Well, the month has come to a close.

A month of hearty celebration, replete with food items of all kinds, and so I thought that this photo was a propos.

I had to shoot a sports banquet tonight, and this was our food. It seems fitting to end the month with a hearty picture of yummy goodness.

I spent most of this Art Every Day Month concentrating on iPhoneography, and it has motivated me to launch another component of my photography project that I'll be starting at the beginning of the year. I will share it with you soon.

Meanwhile, I'll be finishing up my daughter's book of colors this next month I think, and if I don't, it just means it will be a birthday gift for her in January instead of a Christmas present. I will be sure to show you the finished product.

And so, my beloved readers, I bid you adieu this night, and I say so long, blessed November.

art every day month, day twenty-nine.

I feel a heavy french press binge coming on soon.

In a couple of days, it'll be my most favorite month of the year. And I intend to take it as slowly as I possibly can. With lots of yummy homemade lattes.

art every day month, day twenty-eight.

It's my son's birthday today today.

Last year, I shared his birth story with you.

This year, I recorded a little video greeting for him that I hope he will be able to access and watch again years from now, when he is an adult.

But, although I uploaded the small video to Facebook, I have yet to upload it to my computer, so I'll have to share it here later. Due to my slacker-ish ways.

Happy birthday, Fro Magnum.

art every day month, day twenty-seven.

As the days of November draw to a close, I've been thinking about what it is about November that makes it so wonderful to me. Surely not just one day out of the month where we eat ourselves into a stupor. Surely not the prospect of dragging our tryptophan-laden bodies out to stores and malls and whatnot at dark:thirty in the morning the next day?

Nope. Those things are certainly fun, but that's not it.

Part of it is my son's birthday. I look forward to it the whole month until it gets here (on the twenty-eighth).

But the other part of November's sheer loveliness is this.

Yep. That's it. That right there.

art every day month, day twenty-six.

Black Friday is insane.

Fun, but insane.

Thankfully, we found exactly what we needed and wanted and got an equally insane deal on all of it.

Then had breakfast at Waffle House.

It was a great day, before it even really got started.

art every day month, day twenty-five (also titled: natty's thanksgiving top ten).

It was a beautiful and festive Thanksgiving at my home. 

Last year, we did a family craft for Thanksgiving. I decided not to do that this year. Namely because I would be cooking all day and wanted to focus on that whilst my family had fun in the living room with football games on the tv and video games on the Xbox.

After five years of not having to cook for Thanksgiving (because we were always going to someone else's house), I was so excited to just get in there and cook my own Thanksgiving dinner again. And that is NUMBER ONE on my list of thankful goodness this week.

I started the morning off making the Pumpkin Pie while listening to the sounds of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade coming from the living room.

Ahhh. NUMBER TWO. Pumpkin. Pie.

Once the pie was out and cooling, I whipped up the cornbread for my Oyster Dressing.

I put together the seasoning for my turkey.

After using some of my seasoning for the cavity and buttering my turkey under the skin with sage butter, I buttered the outside of it then added the rest of the seasoning.

Once the turkey was in the oven, I was able to take a short break. I horsed around with my kids, and took a few pictures of the little tree in my backyard. I am definitely thankful for the peaceful little view outside of my kitchen window (NUMBER THREE).

After resting my feet for a little bit, I got my pot of Collard Greens on.

Ahhh. Greens.

After a few hours, I took the foil off of the breast of the turkey, and got the turkey stock for the gravy simmering. Man, that turkey looked and smelled sooooo good.

NUMBER FOUR is definitely the aroma of good food wafting through my house.

I wiped my hands on my apron a lot. My now-wrinkled apron, which has seen countless lovely meal-making sessions since I got it. NUMBER FIVE. Thank you, Anna Maria Horner.

Eventually, everything was done, including the gravy, a pot of plain stuffing, and rolls. I set some of the food on the table, but not everything because my table is not big enough.

My husband started carving.

With our mouths stuffed full of yummy food, we went around the table saying what we were thankful for this year. I am thankful for these heartwarming "money" quotes from my family.

NUMBER SIX.

From my husband:

"Man, this turkey is bangin!"

"Dang, these greens are so good I forgot all about the pepper sauce!"

NUMBER SEVEN.

From my little boy:

(Right after my husband said, "I am thankful for," he interrupted and said) "for your kids?"

"I am thankful for my family too!"

"And I am thankful for God too."

(In a great news-anchor-sounding voice) "Bobby, what are you thankful for?"

NUMBER EIGHT.

From my baby girl:

Actually, when it was her turn, she didn't say anything. She just held up her dinner roll. She was thankful for bread. haha

NUMBER NINE.

From my oldest son:

"I am thankful for God always taking care of us."

"Oh my gosh; this oyster dressing is amazing!"

And it was amazing. It didn't last long. 

Neither did the pie.

Ahhh. Pie.

And NUMBER TEN on my list is MY FAMILY. Yes, it may sound cheesy, but I love them so much. I love everything about them. I adore their beautiful God-kissed faces.

The laughter and joy in my home is even better than the food. And the food is GOOD.

I hope your Thanksgiving was just as GOOD.

This post is part of You Capture this week.

art every day month, day twenty-four.

I am so glad there are still colorful leaves left on the trees.

I am also very glad that it's Thanksgiving time. I have loved spending this week with my husband at home. We spent tonight watching Toy Story 3 on our new, freshly-mounted TV (he hadn't seen it yet, while the rest of us had). It's such a heartstring-tugger. Makes UP look like a party.

Such a lovely night, watching a movie and chilling with a glass of Moscato.

And now, it's off to bed for me, so I can get up and start on all of this food!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

art every day month, day twenty-three.

Spent the day finishing up my Thanksgiving Day shopping. And by Thanksgiving Day shopping, I mean food shopping and nothing else.

I am making Butter-and-Sage Roast Turkey, Oyster Dressing, plain Stuffing, Collard Greens, Roasted Cauliflower, Rolls, Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce out of the can (you know, the jelly-like kind), and Pumpkin Pie. Yum and yay.

What are you fixing for dinner on Thursday?

art every day month, day twenty-two.

Today has been a really slow, lazy day for me. And I'm not complaining. It's been great having my husband home for a break. Another few weeks and he'll be done with his work in Ohio, and will be back home for good. Until the next out-of-town project, anyway.

technical difficulties.

I have not posted my Art Every Day Month photos the last couple of days because I keep getting a "Server Rejected" error message when I go to upload my photos. Does anyone know what causes this and how to fix it? I would really love to get these things uploaded and posted...

art every day month, day twenty-one.

This is on one of my "I-don't-need-it-but-it-would-be-nice-to-have-it-since-I-really-do-want-it" wish lists. A cool-looking USB microphone.

art every day month, day twenty.

Ahhhh the pretty, colorful fall leaves again.

art every day month, day nineteen.

My kidlets never cease to stop playing in their rooms and bring the party into mine. Every. Single. Day. The aftermath is always a complete mess. I have a lot of cleaning up to do tomorrow. With the little ones' help, of course. They're gonna be picking up the bulk of these toys. I ain't no punk! haha

Cat in the Hat image, two ways.

art every day month, day eighteen.

 We were extras in a film shoot today. My son had to play an inner-city wrestler. I figured the set, with all of the lights and everything, would make for a couple of good moody shots. I had to throw in one of my kidlets too. They loved watching the whole thing.

crock pot wednesday: chicken cacciatore.

I made Chicken Cacciatore today.

It was a backup plan. I decided in Publix last night that I would put off what I really wanted to cook until later. This was less work.

And when I say less work, I mean I got everything together in LESS than FIVE MINUTES.

Now, I did omit two ingredients -- one because I didn't feel I had time to open the can, and the other because I forgot -- but I got it done right under the wire before I had to be out the door.

Here were my ingredients.

Chopped onion and chopped bell pepper. I bought pre-chopped veggies again for convenience's sake.

A jar of pasta sauce. I love vodka sauce. 

And a small can of mushrooms.

Oregano and fresh basil.

Chicken.

And the omitted ingredients were minced garlic (not pictured), and the can of tomato paste.

And darnit, I did it again. Picked up the WRONG kind of chicken. Bone-in chicken thighs. I hate it when I do that. But not the end of the world.

I put the chicken in the pot, dumped the onion, peppers and mushrooms on top of that, seasoned with the oregano (I eyeballed it, but could have added more) which was supposed to be about two teaspoons worth, added the basil leaves (all of them), and dumped the jar of vodka sauce on top of that. Cooked it on high for six hours.

Got home, and cooked some penne pasta. Once it was done, we ate.

It was pretty good. I will definitely cook it again, because it's easy and quick. And I will be sure to add the omitted items, season more liberally with the oregano, and probably even add some dried basil as well as the fresh.

Here is my food bill.
chicken: $4.58
onion: $2.50
peppers: $2.99
pasta sauce: $2.78 (and it was BOGO this week!)
mushrooms: $.95
basil: $1.99
(The oregano I already had on hand, and I did not include the price of the tomato paste, since I didn't use it.)
TOTAL FOR WHAT WENT INTO MY CROCK POT: $15.79

Next week I won't be doing a crock-pot meal. I'll be preparing to cook my Thanksgiving dinner. I will resume the crock-pot-goodness next week. However, it will probably be on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, as Wednesday will be my birthday and I think I'm gonna take the kids out to eat.

[And yet again, my Crock Pot Wednesday isn't done until Friday, because I'm too stinking lazy to finish writing the darned thing. Definitely gonna get better about that, since this is indeed what I did two DAYS ago and ideally should be shared THEN.]

art every day month, day seventeen.

Took a couple of self-portraits this morning. Remember how last year I said I was really going to get over it? I think I'm just about there.

What I didn't know at the time of taking these photos was that I was going to get a barrage of compliments on my hair throughout the rest of the day. That was pretty cool.

What's also cool is it's almost the weekend, and as of today we are on Thanksgiving break.

art every day month, day sixteen.

I've been itching to do some small paintings.

Maybe I'll carve out some time to do a couple next week. My sweet hubby will be home, we'll be on Thanksgiving break, and I'll have more free time to chill and create.

In the meantime, I am loving all of the fall colors, as I knew I would. I always do. Don't you?

Today was so pretty.

art every day month, day fifteen.

Wow. I can't believe it's already the middle of November.

This season always moves way too fast for me!

I still haven't even planned my little boy's birthday party (he's turning the big 05), and it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Sheesh.

I'm gonna be thinking long and hard about that the next couple of days, as well as trying to finalize my plans for what I'm going to cook for my family for Thanksgiving dinner.

Annnnd I am beginning to write drafts of my first-ever vacation chronicles to share with you. Which brings me to this photo.

Last year I took a ton of photos in the span of a week and a half, many of which I never touched. I've been slowly deleting files off of my computer, and coming across images about which I had completely forgotten. I decided to take one and do some things with it.

I have not felt all that creative today. Hopefully tomorrow will be different.

art every day month, day fourteen.

I like this one because of all of the orange. Over the last few years, orange has become one of my favorite colors. I think it's due to all of the design-y blogs I've been reading since '06. Orange has always been a popular color with them. There's even a blog called 'How About Orange.'

I've got a crap-load of stuff to do this week. Grocery shopping, planning what I'm going to cook for Thanksgiving, cleaning the house (gaaaaahhhh), and of course schooling and everything, all before I pick my husband up from the airport on the weekend! AND I still have a crap-load of photos on Niki that I need to work on, plus another collection of photos from a shoot that I did for someone... I'm still hoping I can get to the photos from the first AGE session of the year, before the NEXT session!

Time to consolidate all of my to-do lists and put one foot in front of the other.

And have a bottle of water.

art every day month, day thirteen.

Some images of the best time of the year. My favorite time of the year.